stevenbard--pretty damned funny and snarky. And right on about the conflict of interest in higher levels of both parties. In some seriousness, with the debt as high as it is, many economists consider inflation a benefit--because you repay debt with cheaper dollars. In that reasoning, deflation is a threat because you repay debt with more expensive dollars. Do they have a clue? Well asked by the cartoon.

This is a great demonstration of what is wrong in politics in this country. Bullet points on ideology become "facts". I couldn't find one fact when re-reading the article except the length of the pipeline. The rest were opinions.

BTW, the policy is "Cap and Trade" not "Cap and Tax". Sorry, but anyone who produces this sort of dialogue is not contributing to solutions.

we will run out of oil.

The 43 bullet points I refer to are the article's stand-alone facts, not the one or two facts or experts' consensus that could be debated as ideology. Opinions, such as "many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy", were not counted in the 43, even though not even Nancy Pelosi would deny that the greatly increased energy costs
Obama promised us from the dais very obviously WILL "adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy". Palin spends much of six paragraphs supporting that obvious claim and why it legitimately converts C&Trade, as she called it throughout the article, to C&Tax in her concluding sentence and thus her title. That’s just sound writing; your title introduces your conclusion. To top it off, the vast majority of politicians, pundits, voters, and news analysts also equate Cap & Trade with Cap & Tax. Calling it Cap & Trade is like the Dept. of the Interior’s calling illegal aliens manufacturing illegal drugs in our national forests “displaced foreign travelers”. Sorry, but I like honest speech, and politically correct obfuscation does not contribute to solutions.

If I thought it would make any difference I'd type out the 43 factual bullets, but it's clear that you don't want to see them. and a short op ed article hasn’t the space to hit us over the head with the details of every implication, transition, segue, link, connection, conclusion, cause, effect, expert opinion, consensus, etc., etc., aaaaand etc. … and so forth.

Of course we can use up all our oil if we keep trying. But as Palin mentions in op-ed-speak (i.e., a word or phrase), supported by the testimony of hundreds of experts,
• We have vast oil sources being kept off-limits by Obama and other purists.
• We have absolutely stunning quantities of natural gas.
• We have many decades’ worth of coal, and ever-increasing was to use it cleanly.
• These policies will significantly increase our energy dependence on China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, et.al.
• Nuclear power fits anywhere, including in the corner of a downtown lot in Rhode Island.

You'd recognize most of the 43 facts as such if you watched more news, read the article closely, diagrammed her sentences, thought about them, and weren’t predisposed to regard Palin as a Tina Fey wannabe. It might even help if you realized that C&T is not an earnest environmental effort, but the article doesn’t depend on that mindset; it stands alone based on its grammatical constructs.

If those clips of and comments by Sara don't terrify you, you aren't paying attention. Let me just mention a few. First, she is a religious zealot--God's work--who doesn't understand the reasons for the First Amendment. She is truly a member of the American Taliban, and will discriminate against those who don't see religion in her way. Second, her comments about American exceptionalism (based on religion of course) and cheap energy out her as a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil companies. While she stood up to energy on the issue of a pipeline, she never completed the deal, and has taken huge contributions from the CO2 generators. The Mike Fick's of the world seem to breeze past the concern that having a financial interest in the outcome may make you a somewhat less than fair expositor of the facts.

We need energy, including oil. My father worked his whole life in the nuclear energy business. But the ideas that drilling is safe (that's what she said), that energy prices will be low if we just unshackle the energy companies from regulation, and that there are no concerns about CO2 are just the talking points fed to her by those who have paid her to flack for them.

Think for a minute about the location of most oil, gas, and coal in this country. It is, for the most part, located on public lands. For the last 40 years the energy dance in this country has involved the extraction people trying to minimize what they pay in royalties for the use of public property, maximize their access to subsidies, and minimize any regulation or mitigation for the impacts. I am not surprised that they would do so, what astonishes me is those who believe their agents without any critical thinking.

And then of course there is BP. Rather than focus solely on the Gulf Spill, perhaps we should look at how they take care of the safety of their workers under the Bush Administration's oversight of environmental and safety laws? It's cheaper to pay for workers deaths than to do it right? Yes sirree, that unshackling the energy companies from regulation is working out real well for the American worker. You betcha life!

Maybe I should watch more TV instead of discussing energy and mining policies and laws with associates and clients that work in the industry?

I'm gonna have to see more than sound bites and folksy "wisdom" from her before I can agree with any of your assessment of her.

Let's have an actual discussion on energy policy next year without the political barbs. Then you can respond when you actually read my opinion, instead of assigning me one.

Didn’t you say you don’t want energy policy decided by industry insiders? Then maybe, as you say, you should “watch more TV instead of discussing energy and mining policies and laws with associates and clients that work in the industry.”

The string of accolades I recited earlier is self-evident even in multiple sound bites, but of course it would take more than sound bites to portray someone in depth. That’s why I watch in-depth interviews of important -- and potentially important -- people by the scores. I’ve been observing Hillary for 20 years, Obama for about 6 years, Palin for >2 years, radical Islam for >40 years.

Besides, this discussion's point was whether Palin's article contained facts, or political gibberish. Not even T. Boone Pickens could claim her statements, as worded, are not facts.

Do you not understand that "I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan" is a fact neither God nor T. Boone Pickens could dispute?

Do you not understand that "I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy" is a fact neither God nor T. Boone Pickens could dispute?

This is an editorial opinion -- get it? "op ed" -- article.

She supports her OPINIONS with with dozens of facts, including:
• direct quotes (e.g., the electricity bills of those already struggling to make ends meet, as the president eloquently puts it, will "necessarily skyrocket" and Warren Buffett admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity.")
• self-evident observations such as “many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges”.
• statements I presume for the sake of this argument to be true like “Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years.” I’ll worry about verifying that statement if and when she runs for office.

Besides that, even her strongest, most sweeping opinions come straight from the mouths of scores of world-class experts collectively worth hundreds, maybe thousands, of billions of dollars they’ve earned from collective centuries of experience in relevant industries, agencies, and nations. I’ve watched all of them speak, often at length, to exactly what she has summarized in a few hundred words. THAT’S the value of watching the news and reading their books. No offense, but for my money they and the heads of several large nations from China to Venezuela trump your experience.

I’m not aware of any political barbs I’ve made about you, and don’t have any interest in debating energy policy at length unless it’s in a forum of real impact. I’ll defer that to experts with clout, neither of which describes me.

So, we have a few conservatives here: two who are simply unable to put forward an argument; one very infrequent visitor; and one who refuses to debate anything, reads only a tiny fraction of this decalogue, but trows up a wordy smokescreen of phantastic numbers, full of narcissistic narrative but completely bereft of any substance, when challenged.

It's a pity. Do I have to out myself a s a conservative in order to have a meaningful discussion here at all?_________________florian - ny22

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